Posted By On April 16, 2011 @ 4:02 pm In Hockey,New York Rangers,NHL | 247 Comments

John Tortorella:

“Going in today, I know that they don’t have any doubt. They’re fine there. Today was just move the blood and get ready to play. It’s a quick turn here, playing a 3 o’clock game tomorrow and we go right back at it.”

“We hope (the home crowd) helps. We need a good start and hopefully we get the building behind us and some guys relax a little bit and we find our way.”

“It’s not so much (correcting) mistakes. It’s trying to get ourselves untracked offensively and trying to release some of the pressure there. I think we have defended pretty well. We defended last night pretty well, better than the first game. But we’re just not creating enough offensively. So it’s not so much mistakes, it’s playing the complete game and allowing yourself to get going offensively. So we’ll see where we go.”

“We’re trying to help them through it here. If you think you have some players that don’t care, I think you go in a different direction. I know the team cares. I know they’re trying. I think other than probably an eight-nine minute span there in the second period, I think we played more to our identity last night. But still, we still need to create more offense. A big part of the game is we play a first period, have some chances especially early in the game, we don’t score. And they end up getting untracked a little bit. I think we got a little sloppy our first couple shifts in the second period, the momentum changes, ends up being an icing call, we have a defensive lapse and they score. And that’s a fine line of gaining momentum and winning hockey games, and they did that last night. We didn’t.”

“There were some plays last night — Brian Boyle had a chance to bring the puck to the net, there were opportunities in the blue. We didn’t score. So we’re going to continue trying.”

Asked what the team could do better …

“Score a goal.”

… on the power play?

“Score a goal. (laughs).”

On struggling through the neutral zone on the PP:

“I think sometimes we’ve struggled there. Let’s face … it’s not working. We’re going to try some different things there tomorrow, maybe some different personnel. And I think that’s a little bit of … your power play is always a microcosm of what your offense is as it’s going. I think there it is there. We’re struggling there. We haven’t had many. I think we had four in the series. But those type, even the two we’ve had in each game, it can create momentum for you, too, or hurt you another way. It’s not so much scoring a goal or not, it’s how it’s presented, how you get your work done there. And I think that’s hurt us a little bit momentum-wise. So, we may try a different couple of looks. But again, it’s a matter of confidence. It’s spread right through our offense. We’ve been down this road before, where we’ve struggled scoring goals, and we’ve bounced out of it. Hopefully tomorrow we find a way.”

“I can remember these, and we’ve only had a few of them, but the second one in Game 1 I thought we had really good puck movement. We’ve struggled getting shots through. Part of that is due to them blocking shots. Part of that is due to us … I think pucks have bobbled on (McCabe) a little bit. We haven’t made right decisions as far as our quickness in shooting. Again, I don’t want to get into dissecting the whole thing. But it mounts on you a little bit. I think our guys have to continue trying to play the way we play, continue defending the way we need to defend, and hopefully our offense gets untracked a little bit. If we get something good to happen to us, hopefully it goes through the team and allows them to play and feel good about themselves.”

Can one break the seal?

“Yeah, yeah. You never know. If you get a lead, you get a lead in your own building, and maybe that helps. It’s something that you don’t map out because it’s here (points to his head). It’s here. And no one knows what goes on there, not only individually but collectively. We’ve just got to stay within ourselves and collectively stay with each other and try to get some good things to happen for us.”

Lineup or PP changes?

“Contemplating, yearh. I haven’t come up with any. I have an idea. So we’ll see … I don’t think the personnel will change. I think we may try some different things as far as lines, but we’ll wait until tomorrow and go with that.”